Minimum meal frequency and associated factors among children aged 6–23 months in Sub-Saharan Africa: a multilevel analysis of the demographic and health survey data

BackgroundWorldwide, approximately half of all children are not provided the minimum meal frequency (MMF). Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) had the lowest proportion of children aged 6–23 months who met the requirements of the complementary feeding indicators, including MMF. Ensuring adequate meal frequency poses a challenge in numerous developing countries, particularly in regions characterized by low household food security, such as SSA. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the pooled prevalence of MMF and its associated factors in SSA via the most recent demographic and health survey data.MethodsA total of 100,526 weighted samples from demographic and health survey datasets of 35 SSA countries were used. A multilevel Poisson regression model with robust variance was applied to identify factors associated with MMF, and the model with the lowest deviance was the best-fitted model. An adjusted prevalence ratio with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was reported, and variables with a p